Letter: Climate change

Here’s a simple idea for saving the world explained by french fries and burps:

Imagine a family dinner table in Boise with two parents and three children, all eating delicious fresh-cut fries and having an enjoyable time. The father, however, decides to burp in front of everyone, emitting a foul stench detrimental to all parties involved. How could we justly deal with this situation in a manner that would rapidly fix the burp pollution problem?

A burp fee, of course. Let’s say the family agrees on a fee of 15 fries per burp. For each burp, the burpetrator is charged 15 fries that are allocated to a common fry bowl, which will be distributed evenly back to the family at the end of the dinner. More fries for the nonburpers, and a strong market-based incentive to reduce harmful burp emissions.

Connection to saving the world: To stand a chance against climate change, we need strong, bipartisan, market-based incentives for emissions reductions. A carbon fee and dividend program, such as that proposed by the Citizens’ Climate Lobby (citizensclimatelobby.org/), would do just that: reduce harmful carbon emissions by placing a $15/ton fee on carbon emissions, exactly like the 15 fry/burp fee.